The way people behave towards others, often annoys me, but it also really interests me because I'd love to know WHY people behave in a certain way. I don't know that society is getting ruder, or more self-indulgent and self-centered, it's impossible for me to be able to gauge this as I've only lived in my generation so my question isn't something like "why are kids and people so rude these days? I blame the internet" rather I guess this topic is just to vent, and to try to understand behaviour.

I'll start. A few days ago I was returning from the grocery store and I pulled up behind a 4WD that was first in line in the right turning lane of a T-intersection. Left lane was for turning left, right for turning right. Our lane had a red light so we were both stopped. I could see the driver of the 4WD not watching the lights, he was looking in the centre section between the seats for something and his face was pointing down so he could not see the lights at all. I saw the traffic from both sides of the T-intersection coming to a halt as the lights were turning red for them and then as expected they all stopped. All this time he was still looking away from the lights and fucking around in his car. A few seconds later, our lane gets a green light and this dickhead is still fucking around in his car so I wait a two or so seconds and give him a short bee-beep of my horn. Not a long loud blast, just a "hey, you're up". Instantly he puts his arm out the window giving me the finger then he pulls off. We both go around the corner and into the left lane (there are two) and he's indicating into a parking lot. As he turns off the road into the parking lot he gives me the finger again so I pull faces at him and returned the gesture driving off wondering what the fuck was with his reaction.

Clearly anything from here on in is pure speculation but the situation created a lot of questions for me: 1) Why does he think it's OK to not look at the lights when they're about to go green? Shouldn't he be concentrating on the road in his giant 4WD?2) Clearly, because he thinks it's OK to do this, why then does he have no regard or respect or give a shit that he is holding people behind him up? Is it just too bad? What if someone did it to him? Would that be OK?3) Why was his first reaction to look in the mirror and give me the finger instead of driving off and putting his hand up in a "sorry" motion.4) Why again did he feel it necessary to give me the finger again ? I wasn't tailgating him, I was just driving home.

I think people are not generally good, rather they are either 50/50 or leaning 25/75 towards bad, to varying degrees, and these people will try to do the easy or wrong thing as much as they can. I also think that people who are doing the wrong thing, feel that it's their right to do so, regardless of the way it affects anyone else. They're told how wonderful they are, &/or have an inflated ego, &/or are compensating for a low self-esteem and believe that most people with either put up with their behaviour and not say or do anything. And most of the time most people will put up with it. BUT if and when you call them on it, rather than (wo)man up and say "yup, i did the wrong thing, sorry" they get aggressive or defensive and think that no-one should say anything to them.. WHYYY????

There seems to be a mentality of "me first, fuck everyone else" but what people seem to fail to grasp is that if everyone has that mentality and behaves that way, everyone will shit everyone else, and if every one "me-firts" no one does..

Yes I realise that just because I think in one way, not everyone will, and I'm not saying that "somehow" everyone needs to change to my way of thinking (whatever that is), rather I'm trying to UNDERSTAND why people behave in certain ways in certain situations...

So, either post your own experiences, or enter into discussions as to the whys of behaviour or both.

I'm about to go out to the shops again and I can virtually guarantee that someone will do something selfish, thoughtless or just plain inconvenient to me or someone else near me. Like some idiot did the other day in the parking lot I came out of in the 4WD story. This moron was holding up traffic trying to get INTO the parking lot cos he was stopped when he had right of way, so he could let car after car out of the parking lot. WHHHHYYYYYYY....